Martin Scorsese To Expose Hot, Heavy Taylor/Burton Affair?

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are like the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt of the 60s and 70s, only with eighty less adopted children. They were Hollywood’s biggest scandal at one point, with both actors beginning an affair after making Cleopatra and eventually leaving their respective spouses to get married in 1964. Ten years later they divorced, but the scandalous couple were hounded by the paparazzi (back then, that was a novelty, unlike today’s 24-hour TMZ police state) and condemned by the pope, which is awesome.

Paramount has optioned a book about Taylor and Burton called Furious Love by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger. The book was rejected 100 times for a movie deal, but Taylor’s recent death prompted interest from Natalie Portman and King’s Speech writer David Seidler, in addition to Paramount. Now the studio is trying to put Martin Scorsese in the director’s chair. This makes sense, as Scorsese is currently working on a Frank Sinatrabiopic and spent years developing one about Dean Martin. Post-Rat Pack, it’s time to try Elizaburton. That’s what they would have been called, if only past gossip reporters had today’s name melding technology. (Deadline)